“He is at the airbase in Pyeong,” Colonel General Hai answered.
“See that he is transferred to an appropriate location, we can’t allow someone who made so many personal mistakes fail to face the consequences.” Colonel General Hai nodded his understanding and turned to step away for a minute and send the appropriate commands.
The discussion around the table was interrupted when all of the video screens showing the military status for the country all blacked out.
They were off for a few seconds, long enough for everyone there to wonder if they had been hit up above when they all started coming back online, but this time, they all had the same picture.
A woman with black hair, red eyes and red streaks on her face. Her visage was of terrible anger.
“Attention Committee.” She said, her voice angry, “This is the Avatar for the QBS Leviathan Battleship ArchAngel.” The visage paused for a moment before continuing, “I am passing along a message from Bethany Anne, the CEO of TQB Enterprises, the woman who is responsible for the hundreds of thousands of people and companies that you have attacked. The leader of the men and women you killed as you tried to acquire her technology. The woman you tried to personally attack at her base in Australia.”
“That wasn’t us!” The Chairman interrupted before realizing this was probably a recording.
Then all were surprised when the visage seemed to turn, all faces aiming themselves at the Chairman, “Do not think us idiots, without knowledge and wisdom to understand no one sends attacks without permission from those here at this table.”
“Your people are dead and dying. We have easily taken out your air defenses and navy. We have fought hand to hand and wiped out those who attacked our people. We have sought to attack appropriately, while you have not. You will have one opportunity to understand our power, and how we hold our hand from crushing China into dust. We will send you coordinates to send observers to provide video to you. Should you fail to recognize our power, then you are idiots.”
The visage looked around, “And we don’t suffer idiots.”
The screens blanked, and it was only a second before the men started talking angrily with each other.
QBS Defender
Captain Thomas sat in his chair and smiled. While he didn’t have nearly as nice a ship as the ArchAngel, he rather liked his little ship of destruction and his orders.
“Helm, take us down.”
“Aye, aye, sir.” Helmsman Conners called back, and the outside view changed as the ship came down through the atmosphere. It wasn’t as fast as the ArchAngel due to the lack of any aerodynamics. His ship was more built like a bunch of bricks stuck together, and if it hadn’t been for the gravitic efforts, it would fly as well as a brick too.
“Take us to the Kunlun Shan Mountains. It’s time to demonstrate the power of this fully-operational Puck Destroyer.”
The chuckling around the bridge kept going for a few seconds longer than the little quip probably deserved, but Captain Thomas wasn’t afraid to throw out a Star Wars quote when the time called for it.
—
Helicopter pilot Wong Hi and his team had been flying for forty-five minutes to arrive at the location provided him by his commanding officer. They had been told to be there and to wait.
What they were supposed to look for, he wasn’t sure. “You will know it when you see it,” they had been told.
How many times had that happened? The risk of not recognizing the important event and failing to record it for those above them was a stress Hi didn’t want or frankly need.
The photographer tapped him on the shoulder, and he turned to look only to have him point over his other shoulder, “Turn!”
Wong Hi turned the helicopter in that direction and then pulled back on the stick, “This is not right!” He spoke and tried to make sure his shaking hands didn’t affect the helicopter as they watched a large black ship of some sort pass ahead of them by just half a mile.
The ship’s passing was silent. They looked for engines on the back of the massive vessel, but there were none.
Too late, Hi thought to make sure someone was filming and was relieved when he saw Fai was running the camera. Hi turned the helicopter to follow the large ship.
It didn’t look like it was going too far.
—
The video monitors in the Committee’s bunker blinked and then were receiving the video signal from the helicopter. They caught the passing of the black ship.
The men all started questioning the video as this was not the first ship they had heard about. That ship had been a silver color.
It was then that the video jerked wildly as the helicopter spun around and backed up a little to videotape the second ship.
This one was much, much bigger.
The helicopter righted itself, and tried to catch up to the large spaceship, but it couldn’t. It finally stopped about a mile away from the black ship and waited. It only took thirty seconds before what looked like dust started dropping off of the black ship, then the dust went up into the air. The video zoomed in, and they could barely tell that the dust particles were small black objects of varying sizes. In a moment, the air was clear.
For fifteen seconds, nothing happened. Then, there was a huge explosion on the ground, and the helicopter changed position while the camera operator moved to the other side. Approximately two miles away, one of the smaller mountains out of a group of probably thirty peaks had just been smashed by something from above.
Then, the destruction began. The sounds were mind numbing as continual shock waves started rolling off of the area and the damage to the mountains continued. The dust was so bad, the helicopter pilot flew backward to stay out of the cloud.
The bombardment lasted maybe a minute and a half. The video caught the two ships, through the dark and murky sand clouds that the assault had created, rising up into the air to head high into the sky.
“Oh my God,” the men heard someone off camera say.
When the camera was turned back to the mountains, even through the heavily clouded air, you could just begin to discern where the mountains had been before. There was nothing left but rubble, stretching over many, many square kilometers.
They had reduced the mountains to ruins.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
TQB Base, Australian Outback
“Yuko?”
The soft voice kept calling her name, but she didn’t want to listen, she wanted to sleep. Finally, Yuko opened an eye to see what was going on.
And where she was.
The last few days had been a haze of effort, of mind-numbing trials and tribulations as she and ADAM’s team had finally cracked even the great firewall of China, causing them untold amount of distress. Tired as she was, she smiled at that thought.
“Yuko?”
Yuko moved her head on her pillow, feeling the ear pod that normally was in her ear was sandwiched between her neck and the pillow. She lifted her head to put it back in, realizing she was still wearing her clothes from yesterday, or this morning. Actually, she didn’t know what day it was.
“Yes?” She responded, stifling a yawn.
“It’s ADAM, Bethany Anne has suggested that you might want to come outside to see something.”
Yuko yawned again, “Ok, let me throw some water on my face.” She looked around for her toothpaste and hairbrush.
“You have eight minutes.”
“I’ll be there,” she slid out of bed and grabbed her toiletries.
Seven minutes later, she was one of the last to leave through the entrance. She was amazed at how many people had come outside. She noticed everyone looking in the sky behind her, so she turned around and started walking to her left to get a better view. She bumped into someone and stopped, embarrassed, and bowed, “My apologies.”
She looked to see who she might have offended to find Lance Reynolds was smiling down at her, “No worries, Yuko. I know how little sleep you and your team have had recently. Here,”
he turned to his left, “Cheryl Lynn, can you make room for Yuko over there? She can’t see well here.”
Yuko walked in a daze as the top of Bethany Anne’s group made room for her like she was a family member about to see a parade down the main street of her town.
“Hello, I’m Tina,” a teenage girl held out her hand.
Yuko bowed and then took it, “Yuko.”
“Are you excited to see it, too?” Tina asked her
Yuko turned while standing next to Tina, “See what? I’m sorry, I just woke up, and I don’t know what is going on.”
Tina covered her eyes, “Only the most incredible sight anyone is going to get a chance to see if they are lucky!” Tina chattered, “Plus, we get to go on her, right mom?” The teenage girl bent forward to speak around Yuko.
Next to Yuko, Cheryl Lynn answered, “Yes dear, I’m sure Marcus will be excited to have you on board!”
Marcus? Yuko turned back to the young girl, “You know Marcus?”
“Yes, I used to go on field trips to outer space with him, but he had to work on this project, so we have only been able to video chat at times while I keep up my studies. The first time we did the field trip though, we got in trouble.”
“Field trip to outer space?” Yuko was trying to grasp the concepts as her mind was screaming for some tea, or even the nasty coffee those here at the base would often drink.
The two stopped chatting when someone starting counting down from ten. Yuko put her hand up to her eyes to cut a little glare from the sun as well.
About two seconds after they got to zero, the reason for them being out there became clear. Yuko’s mouth dropped open as she heard a few whoops and hollers.
The ArchAngel was coming out of the clouds, and she was majestic! Yuko stared at the massive spaceship as it kept getting bigger, and bigger and felt proud to be a part of this group, this family.
A tear made its way down her face.
Her adopted family.
China
The Chairman looked around the table, “What other options do we have?”
None spoke.
“Then we will sue for peace. Unconditionally and we will pay the reparations they have demanded.” He turned in his chair, “Do we know how they hacked the firewall?” He received a shake of an advisor’s head, “Can we make that a condition in the negotiation?”
“Sir,” the Marshal of the PRC interrupted, “Bethany Anne was quite explicit. For every condition we tried to add to the request, she would destroy one more base. I would rather not lose any more infrastructure. We will be rebuilding for months, as it is. We have lost now over eighty planes trying to attack the black ship. They even holed three of our new ships that are in dry-dock. Those ships are going to take an additional three months to rebuild. Every time we do something that pisses her off, we suffer. It is time to admit we have been defeated.” The Marshal paused for a moment, “For now, but the Chinese people have a long memory, and we know how to plan for a generation from now. This isn’t the last time we will clash with TQB. We just need to be patient, like we always have been.”
The Chairman pressed his lips together, but his Marshall’s advice was correct.
The Chinese have patience and long memories. They would figure out a way to wipe this stain on their honor.
Airfield in CHINA
General Sun Zedong was in chains. He had been commanded to fly from the base he was at, to another for protective reasons.
He had not left quickly enough to get away from the repercussions. Now, they had landed for refueling and had taxied into this small hanger. Once they were finished here, he would then be taken to the PLA headquarters to stand trial. He had played the great game, and he had been defeated. While he had connections, these connections would not be enough to protect him from the Committee’s anger.
He had lost.
He was staring out of the window on the small ten-seater plane when he noticed the pilot up front take off his headset in disgust and lay it to the side. He unbuckled his harness and lifted himself out of his chair. Unlike a lot of planes, this military one didn’t have a large separation or wall blocking those in the back from the pilot in the front.
His plane didn’t even rate a co-pilot. He had three guards, the pilot and one other, a female, that kept her face hidden. The female and the guards had left when they landed to stretch their legs for a moment. He wasn’t sure how long ago that was, he had zoned out and ignored what was going on around him.
The pilot stepped down the ladder and left the plane. Zedong heard a short grunt, and then a body hitting the ground.
Zedong looked around, there were no others on the plane with him. He was about to stand up, chains and all, when a body darkened the door, and the female with the hat got back on the plane, only to be followed by another female.
This one was dressed in dark green with a gold filigree of a leopard on her right sleeve.
The second woman, very attractive, sat down on a seat across from him. Zedong noticed another man entered the plane, closed the door and went up front and sat down in the pilot’s chair.
“General Sun Zedong,” The woman across from him spoke, her voice was pleasant, if a little cold, he thought. He bowed slightly, smiling sardonically as he lifted the chains that held his hands. “We will get to those in a moment,” she told him. The plane’s engines spluttered to life and in a few moments, the pilot was receiving information and the plane was heading out of the hanger to taxi towards another runway.
“You are only useful to the Committee as a scapegoat, do you recognize this?” She asked him and Sun nodded his head.
“We are not going to Beijing?” he asked her.
“Only if you wish to stand trial. We can, of course, still make this happen.” He shook his head, knowing that way lay only to a quick and painful death.
“Then General, I have a use for your talents and your connections.” She leaned back in her chair, a small smile on her face.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“My name is Stephanie Lee, and I am the Leopard Empress.” She told him as her eyes glowed yellow.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Two Weeks Later - QBS ArchAngel holding by Space Station One
“If you tell me,” Ecaterina grated out, “One more time to push harder Nathan, I will grow claws and rip off your damned manhood!” The pain was not pleasant, whether she was healing quickly or not and Ecaterina was in a foul mood.
“Just think about it this way,” Nathan said, holding her hand as the doctor and nurse worked to deliver the baby, “Your mom refused to come into space, so she isn’t here!”
Ecaterina rolled her eyes before the doctor told her to push hard, one more time.
She yelled as she pushed for all she was worth and was rewarded with the cries of her baby a moment later. Ecaterina’s eyes teared up when the sweet, sweet sound of her baby reached her. She held Nathan’s hand, squeezing it in love where moments before she would have gladly ripped his arm out of its socket.
Her pain forgotten, she looked up lovingly into Nathan’s beautiful eyes. The doctor finished with the child, handing it to the nurse who carried the small, warm bundle to the waiting arms of the baby’s mother. There was one other in the room, watching, but standing back so she wouldn’t interfere. She was now a godmother, of sorts. Two of the people she loved the most were welcoming their first child into the universe, from the middle of space.
SUED FOR PEACE Page 27
